The Hour We Chose Different Skies

I watched the last light in your helmet fade as the airlock sealed and understood with a clarity that hurt that whatever had kept us aligned had already slipped out of reach.

The bay lights dimmed to safety glow and the sound of pressurization settled into a low steady thrum. Frost traced delicate lines along the inner door where warmth met vacuum. My glove was still raised inches from the glass as if touch might cross barriers if intention were strong enough. You did not look back. The reflection of my own visor stared at me instead pale and distant. Somewhere deep in the station a warning chimed and then went quiet. The hour chose us rather than the other way around.

Aurora Station hung above the terminator line of the planet half bathed in sunrise half swallowed by night. The view was famous for its beauty and its cruelty. Light and dark divided by a razor edge that never stopped moving. I drifted away from the lock toward the observation ring where the artificial gravity was light enough to make grief feel buoyant. The planet below turned slowly its clouds catching gold then releasing it. I pressed my forehead to the glass and tried to remember the first time you had stood beside me here and said it looked like a promise still deciding whether to keep itself.

We met on a calibration shift meant to last an hour and stretched into an entire cycle. The station was new then still smelling of clean polymer and hope. You were assigned to orbital mechanics precise and quiet. I was on atmospheric modeling chasing storms across digital worlds. When an alignment error refused to resolve we leaned over the same console our shoulders nearly touching. You spoke softly counting vectors under your breath. I listened to the cadence rather than the math and felt something settle that I did not yet recognize as longing.

The days that followed were built from small shared moments. Coffee in the galley when the lights simulated dawn. Walks along the outer ring where the hum of the station softened and the planet filled the windows. You liked to pause at the same point every time resting your hand on the railing as if greeting an old friend. I learned to slow my steps there. We talked about work first then about less necessary things. Music you remembered from childhood. A place on Earth I had never seen but felt I knew from your description. Our conversations ended with unfinished sentences that felt deliberate.

Aurora Station studied climate adaptation technologies methods for helping future colonies survive volatile worlds. The work demanded precision and patience and trust. We spent long hours in adjacent labs separated by transparent walls that reflected our movements back at us. Sometimes our eyes met through the glass and we smiled briefly then returned to our screens. The station lights cycled through colors meant to support circadian rhythms but they also became a language. Soft blue for focus. Warm amber for rest. I began to associate certain shades with the sound of your voice.

The first storm we mapped together was beautiful and dangerous a spiral of charged particles tearing across the planet upper atmosphere. We argued quietly about its trajectory our voices low restrained. When the model finally stabilized you laughed once short and surprised. The sound echoed oddly in the lab. Without thinking I reached out and squeezed your hand. The contact lasted less than a second. We both froze. Then we stepped apart as if nothing had happened. Later that night the memory of your hand stayed warm in my palm long after I removed my gloves.

The warning came subtly. A drift in the data that did not align with expected results. Time stamps that repeated. Simulations that seemed to anticipate our adjustments before we made them. The system logs suggested feedback loops forming between predictive models and observational inputs. At first it felt like success. Then it began to feel personal. Models shifted more accurately when we worked side by side. Errors crept in when we were apart. The station itself seemed to respond to our proximity lights brightening sensors resolving more cleanly.

I brought the concern to you late one cycle while the planet below slept under cloud. You listened without interrupting your expression unreadable. When I finished you asked if I believed connection could influence systems designed to be objective. I said no and yes in the same breath. You smiled sadly and said some things were never truly separate.

The committee response arrived weeks later formal and efficient. They had noticed the anomalies. They framed them as risk. Emotional resonance interfering with predictive integrity. The solution was separation. One of us would be reassigned to the new outpost beyond the inner belt where conditions were stable and boring. The work would continue clean and untouched. The choice of who would leave was presented as mutual.

We did not argue about it. We met in the observation ring where light and shadow divided the planet. The station hummed softly around us. You said you would go. I said I should. We said nothing else for a long time. The terminator line slid beneath us gold giving way to blue. When you finally spoke you said that some skies could not be shared without tearing. I wanted to disagree. I did not.

The days before departure stretched thin. We moved through the station with careful courtesy as if distance could be measured and controlled. In the lab we worked opposite shifts. In the galley we sat at different tables. At night I dreamed of standing between two suns unable to face either without turning my back on the other. I woke with my heart racing and the sense that time itself was impatient.

On the final evening we broke our own rules. The station was quiet most crew already transferred. Emergency lights cast long shadows in the corridor. We met by accident or intention near the docking bay. You looked tired your eyes shadowed but steady. We spoke about logistics first schedules supplies trivial things. Then silence pressed in heavy and insistent.

You asked me if I would miss the storms. I said yes and meant more. I asked if you were afraid. You considered this then nodded once. You said fear was another form of gravity. It kept things in orbit. I stepped closer close enough to feel the heat through your suit. The station lights shifted to amber signaling rest that would not come.

We touched then carefully as if learning a fragile instrument. My hand found your shoulder. Yours rested at my wrist. The contact felt both inevitable and forbidden. For a moment the world narrowed to breath and warmth and the hum of systems keeping us alive. Then an alarm chimed softly a reminder not an emergency. The models in the background spiked wildly. The station responded to us with alarming clarity.

We stepped apart at the same time. The cost was no longer abstract. The systems we had built to protect futures were bending around us. To choose each other fully would mean destabilizing everything we had worked to preserve. You closed your eyes. When you opened them your expression was resolved and unbearably gentle. You said that loving someone did not always mean staying within reach.

The departure hour arrived wrapped in procedure. Suits sealed checks completed. The bay filled with the scent of metal and cold. We stood facing each other separated by layers of protection and unsaid words. I wanted to tell you that I would carry this always that some part of me would remain aligned with your orbit no matter the distance. Instead I said travel safe. You smiled behind the visor and replied with the same words we had used a hundred times for minor departures.

The airlock sealed. The sound was soft almost kind. Your ship detached and drifted free its lights blinking once before turning toward its new sky. I remained watching until the bay lights brightened and the moment was officially over.

Now Aurora Station feels larger and emptier. The models run clean and cold. The storms behave as predicted. The terminator line still slides across the planet beautiful and indifferent. Sometimes when the light is just right I imagine I see your ship far away a glint against the dark. I know it is not there.

I have learned that some choices echo longer than others. That love can be an act of restraint as much as surrender. The hour we chose different skies did not end us completely. It reshaped us into parallel paths that never meet yet remain aware of each other through the quiet pull of memory. When I stand at the glass and watch the planet turn I rest my hand on the railing where you used to and feel the ache settle into something almost like peace.